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(More customer reviews)I did what I always said I'd do when deciding on a DSLR--buy the cheapest thing out there and never worry about new models trumping the old ones. It made sense for me to consider Pentax, since I have several K-mount as well as older screw mount lenses, the latter of which can be used on this body with a $15 adapter. It may come as a jolt to Nikon owners, but Pentax has FAR more reverse compatibility than Nikon. I can meter a 50 year old screw mount lens on my entry-level body. Try that with a D50.
As for features, I can't attest to the accuracy of the multipoint autofocus or the multizone metering, because I don't trust "multi" anything. For me it's single point AF and spot metering (knowing that my primary camera is an Olympus OM3 may help you understand). As for the RAW vs jpeg war, let somebody who cares argue that one. Everything I shoot is jpeg and it looks just fine to me--I never used the zone system, either. And noise/grain? If you've shot GAF 500 or 3M/Ferrania 640T slide film, you can talk to me about this issue. This camera does spectacularly through ISO 800, and even looks impressive at 1600. I've shot several images at 3200 and they look like TMAX 3200 to me. Pentax wisely kept the lid on noise reduction, so things may look noisy or grainy, but they do not lack for detail.
The fifth star? For the bargain price? No, that would be condescending. I discovered, after the fact, that the camera provides some image-tweaking features, such as conversion to monochrome; or to sepia (it does look just a touch too yellow for me--but still quite acceptable). But the fifth star goes to the "soft" setting, which produces a gorgeous Gaussian blur, which could not look better if I'd custom-designed it myself. I know--it's jpeg, and I lose a little info when I use these things--that's my business.
So there you are--400 bucks for a digital SLR body. I skipped the "kit" lens, because at its longest focal length, 55mm, it's only f/5.6--I rarely stop DOWN that far. Besides, I already have a pinhole camera. The body feels tightly constructed, controls are as logical as any digital is likely to be, and it won't break the bank. And if you're worried about "only" 6 Megapixels--please--with such low noise levels it provides anything you'd need short of producing murals.
12-31-06: Some added thoughts. My guess is many of you have been reading about the Leica M8 digital and how sensitive it is to infrared. Evidently this creates issues with color shots, but it opens up a whole other world of creative shooting. I tried my Hoya R72 filter--which transmits NO visible light, only IR--on my K110,
and while the optical viewfinder was like a coal mine, once I made a shot and reviewed it on the LCD, sure enough, I had a pretty decent infrared image...BUT...with a pronounced red cast to it. So I went into the digital filter mode on the camera, converted it to monochrome (B&W) and had my digital IR. Shooting infrared film was always a dicey proposition, so don't expect shooting it digitally to be any different. I found many images benefitted from exposure compensation ranging from +1 to +2. I should also add that since exposure times are rather long, maybe this is where the stabilizer on the K100 would have been worth the extra $$$. To a degree you can bump up the ISO; I know this brings on the noise, but if you ever shot Kodak's HIE infrared, you know that coarse grain is one of its characteristics.
Bottom line--my experience with my bargain-basement D-SLR has been one of complete satisfaction. The more I shoot the more I'm coming to believe that anything over 6MP on this size chip is just the horsepower race all over again--useful for bragging rights only. I hope Pentax can continue to make a go of it, because a market dominated by only one or two players is not healthy in the long run. Maybe Hoya's "merger" will keep them going a bit longer.
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CL) PENT K110D W/PENT 18-55 ZOOM LEN
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